Tuesday, December 05, 2017

From way back in the dark ages of 2007, here's a Christmas EP from the shores of beautiful Hawaii. The cover, unfortunately, is not as beautiful. I think the manufacturing process did something to it that left it susceptible to some sort of nasty oxidation as you can see. I've seen several of these over the years, and they've all succumbed to one degree or another. (Some Mercury label stuff of the same vintage exhibits a similar problem, though it's not all of them.) Later on, I found the cover below which has the same catalog number and the same tracklist, though it's survived the years in much better shape. I dropped it into the download, so if you want to change it, be my guest. This is Christmas At The Hawaiian Village With Alfred Apaka And The Hawaiian Village Serenaders (Hawaiian Village HV-EP-2, Mono).

Although I collect almost every genre, Hawaiian lounge music has always been a style I have avoided. But I can't resist this. Maybe all those years of looking at Alfred Apaka records in thrift stores has made me curious. Also, it seems obscure, which I can't resist.

i like these faded colors. it makes me feel like i'm not alone. i have old family snapshot albums from the 1950s and they're all faded too. some are just gone... turned white, turned black, or just turned. we once had 'better living through chemistry', but i guess the warranty has expired. there are a few people out there who are somehow able to maintain wonderful worlds of color; but i don't trust them. ask alan holmes or gloria parker. or solomon linda.

I adore Hawaiian music so thank you very much for this! It'll be great to listen to over the next 11 days of Christmas. WMass just got hit with the third winter storm of the month (at least today's was snow, the last two were snow+heavy rain=ice) & I'm ready for some warm weather music!

Thank you SO MUCH for posting this. I think its the last Alfred Apaka recording I've needed to complete my collection. I have a copy of the deteriorated album cover in my collection but sadly it was missing the vinyl so I have not had the music until now. I can't thank you enough.

Got Vinyl?

Ernie's Christmas record want list. There might be something in that stack of Christmas records you want to throw out that I need. Actually, there's a lot more that I need that I don't know about, so send 'em all to me (especially singles)! (Revised 03 March 2018)